


Hey Brother

by Adira_Tyree



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Amnesia, Dealing With Trauma, F/M, Fallout Kink Meme, Family, Inspired by Music, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3891634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adira_Tyree/pseuds/Adira_Tyree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A courier goes on the adventure of his life, and has to find himself to find his way back home again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Kink Meme, prompt over [here](http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/5646.html?thread=13960718#t13960718).
> 
> Inspired by "Hey Brother" by Avicci.

Rick ruffled the little girl’s hair, smiling down at her despite her sniffles. “Grace, you’re gonna be just fine with Nate taking care of you.” Loose strands of her blonde hair stood out in all directions, the rest tied back in a braid.

“I don’t want you to go,” she whined, starting to cry in earnest now as she wrapped her arms around her oldest brother’s leg. She still clutched onto her teddy bear with one hand.

Rick laid his hand on the back of her head, his heart heavy. None of them had left home without each other for more than a few hours since mom and dad had died. He turned to Nate, the middle child, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll take care of her, won’t you?”

Nate just nodded, not saying anything. He hadn’t taken it well when Rick explained he’d gotten a job as a courier with the Mojave Express. It meant he’d be gone for unknown stretches of time. It meant one less familiar face in an already too-empty home.

“You know I’ll always come back home to you guys,” Rick said, forcing himself to keep smiling. “Besides, somebody has to work in this family.” He laughed, shaking his own blond hair out of his eyes, but neither sibling joined him.

“You promise you’ll come home?” the Grace, looking up but still clutching Rick’s leg.

Rick dropped down to look her in the eyes, taking her by her tiny shoulders. “You call, I’ll come running, ok Gracey?”

Grace sniffed hard, but her face was soaked with tears anyway. “But how will you know?”

He pulled a rag from his pocket and gently dried her face, an ache settling into his chest as he watched new tear tracks quickly form again. “I may not come right away, but I promise, I’ll always come home.”

 

* * *

 

Rick’s heart pounded in his chest as he tried in vain to pull his hands free. He wanted to run, to reach for his gun, to look at the photo of his brother and sister in his pocket – anything but sit there and face death calmly.

“Truth is,” the man in the black and white checkered coat said, lingering on the words like they would mean something to him, “the game was rigged from the start.”

The barrel of the gun shined in front of him, an angle on it he didn’t ever want to see. He thought about the little girl he’d promised to always return to, how often he’d taken other jobs instead of going back to her. It meant she’d have food always on her table, but she’d lost half of her family already. Just as bad was the thought of his brother, too young to be in charge of someone else’s life but old enough that they had to make it work. Nate was 14 when Rick had left the first time – and that was three years ago. In a year he could join up with the NCR’s Military.

Then Grace really would be all alone.

He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut hard. If there was anything out there to pray to, he decided, now was as good a time as any to start to believe.

 

* * *

 

“Whoa, easy there. Easy. You been out cold a couple of days now.” An older man sat in a chair across from him, reaching a hand out to steady his swaying shoulders. He could barely think straight, his head was throbbing. But why?

He reached up and felt bandages wrapped around his head, but the man swatted his hands away.

“Let’s see what the damage is…” the man asked, looking carefully into his eyes, first one and then the other. “How about your name? Can you tell me your name?”

Something didn’t feel right. He thought, reaching back, knowing this was a silly question but also an important one. “Courier?” he asked, opening his eyes again. “Is it Courier?”

The man’s smile faded slightly. “Well, I don’t frankly know, but I reckon it isn’t since that’s your job.”

“Oh.”

“Well,” the man said, standing up, “no matter. We can come back to that one. Let’s see if we can get you on your feet.” The man held out both hands to help him, but he stood fine on his own. “Take it slow now! This ain’t a race.”

His hand flew to his chest, reaching for a pocket that wasn’t there. “Where is it?” he asked, looking around too quickly and setting his vision ablur.

“What, your jacket? Oh don’t you worry, that’s over here with the rest of your things.”

“No, in the jacket. Where is it?”

The man handed him the small collection, his life piled into a tiny box. “I hope you don't mind but I gave the note a look. I thought it might help me find a next of kin. There’s a photo, too, but it’s a bit faded. No names on it, either.”

He snatched the photo up, clutching it and sighing. The photo was important. He didn’t know why, but the photo was everything. “Thank you god,” he said quietly, holding it to his chest.

“Are you a man of faith?” the older man asked, seemingly surprised. Used to have faith down in the Vault where I come from, but not many folks up here seem to know anything about it.

He looked up at the man, still pressing the photo to his chest. “I don’t remember.”

 

* * *

 

“First deadbeat we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive.” Nash shook his head, lighting a cigarette. “Well, that’s where you came in.”

Six sighed, shaking his head. “I remember the chip. I remember the job. But I don’t remember being followed, or anything from the night… it got stolen.” He didn’t like to say _the night I got shot._ It sent shivers up and down his spine, tremors that wouldn’t go away. “Have you seen a man in a checkered suit come through?”

“Well, now that you mention it, a few nights back one of the townies was out scavenging for supplies. He said he saw a fella with a daisy suit come through with some of them Great Khan misfits. They was talking about a chip. Might have been yours.” Nash shook his head. “Deputy Beagle may have heard where they were going.”

With a little persuasion, Six was able to trade all of the dynamite he’d scavenged for shotgun shells, giving him an effective weapon – if a loud one. The sound of the gun’s blast always made his head spin, the smell made him nauseous, but his aim kept him alive. And that was better than he’d been a month ago.

Six still had to rely on the Pipboy that Doc had given him to remember to do all the basic things: eat, sleep, keep hydrated, avoid radiation. But at least he could keep himself alive. He thought about the photo in his pocket, knowing that he had to find those people. The teen boy and the little girl. There was just no way to be sure of why.

 

* * *

 

“Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt…”

The strange man’s voice was drowned out by the sound of fire in Six’s ears. Bodies, too many bodies. Bodies up on posts, bodies scattered across the ground, bodies _burning on the fires_. No, this was not a man to trust, no matter how sweet his voice tasted.

“I will do as you ask,” he said, though he had no desire to help. He just wanted to stay alive.

When the men in red had left, their mongrels obediently following after, Six ran. Ran in the opposite direction until he was pressed up against the chain link fence at the edge of town, and vomited into the dirt. The smell of his own lunch and the sight of the settling dust only made his stomach lurch again.

_These were people_ , he thought, pressing a hand to his chest to steady himself. _Real people with families. Teenage boys and little girls._

He shoved himself away from the mess on the ground, collapsing just a few feet away. “ _Grace_ ,” he sobbed, seeing the severed head of a young woman with blonde hair set up on a spike. With no energy to move, Six curled in on himself and closed his eyes, shaking.

“I’m so sorry Grace,” he whispered, “I’m coming home, I promise.”

 

* * *

 

“What in the goddamn…”

“Look,” Six sighed, exasperated. “Can we skip this? I know, I was supposed to be dead. Got better. You must be a pretty bad shot.”

“I hit what I was aiming for,” the man in the checkered suit, Benny, said. “You must have had brains to spare. Or maybe you’re just thick skulled?”

For the first time that he could remember, not that he could remember very far back, Six wanted to hurt somebody. A very specific somebody. This man really didn’t care, did he? How could he? Everything about him was _just business._

_Nothing personal, kid._ Six’s eyes widened as he realized he was starting to remember something, but the realization pushed the memory back away just as quick as it had come.

“What?” Benny asked, giving him a strange look. “Hello?” He waved a hand in front of Six’s face. “Maybe those bullets did scramble your egg…”

“ _Be. Quiet._ ” Six said, closing his eyes. “I was starting to remember… something. I don’t know. You took my memory from me. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

There was a pained look in the man’s expression. Maybe he did care after all, or maybe he just never expected to have to face his victims – Six didn’t know. But he tossed a key to Six, saying, “I’ll comp you the Presidential - best suite in the house. After what you been through, you deserve a taste of the VIP lifestyle. Give me a moment or two to catch my breath and knock back a few cocktails, and I'll swing by for a meet and greet. I'll clue you in, guaranteed - every question answered.”

Something about the sudden change of mood made Six happy for the silenced pistol in his jacket, and the razor up his sleeve. He was betting Cass would be able to pull through for him if those failed. Swank was just a little too easy for a woman to charm – and she knew how to lay it on thick.

 

* * *

 

“I like to think you have enough sense to do the right thing.”

Six wasn’t entirely sure that the man in the computer really knew what ‘the right thing’ had gotten him so far. The words just made him angrier.

“The right thing? I’ve been chasing down the man who stole this _fucking chip_ from me for months, all because of some damned job. Some damned job that shouldn’t even have been mine.” He wanted to punch the display, even though he knew it would do no good, but he balled his hands into fists anyway. “All I even remember is that there’s a boy in a photograph standing next to a little girl named Grace, and I have to find them. But I’m still here doing _the right thing_ so I can afford to eat. Maybe so that _they_ can eat! I don’t even know for sure!”

Shaking, Six started pulling at his hair. “Now I’m here in this insane fort full of people that do the most disgusting, vile things, all for the sake of your _right thing!_ ” The man in the screen tried to speak again, but Six cut him off. “But I’ll do _the right thing_ because it’s what I do every damn time as long as it’s not the right thing for _me_. And when this is done? I’ll be happy if I never see your damned city again.” He walked away ignoring the man’s response as he stepped down the stairs into the bunker.

“What an asshole,” Cass muttered, shaking her head as she followed him down the stairs. “Creepy old men are always the worst ones.”

He blasted a protectron with his shotgun at the bottom of the stairs, charging full speed ahead. Anything electronic with a voice was starting to make him angry by default. Electronics weren’t his specialty – that had always been Nate’s job.

Six stopped dead in his tracks, listening to the mechanical footsteps of another protectron not far ahead of him.

_Nate?_

 

* * *

 

“We don't have the luxury of long-term diplomacy any longer.”

Six stared at her, shaking his head. This wasn’t his war, he didn’t want anything to do with it. He was just a courier. A courier with the most fucked up job in the wasteland, apparently. The extra caps weren’t worth it to him anymore, he just wanted to go home.

Wherever home was.

Maybe if he just set his feet moving they’d lead him there on their own. Luck didn’t seem to be his friend though, so maybe not.

He’d talked to Cass about everything he could remember, every tiny detail from random numbers that felt familiar to names of people and places he couldn’t picture. He’d even shown her the photograph, just in case she’d seen Nate or Grace before, but to no avail. It only seemed to narrow it down to places he wasn’t from.

Maybe, once this war for New Vegas let him free, he’d just walk back down the Long 15 and ask at every bar if they remembered him. But first he had to do the _newest_ right thing on his list.

If he ever shot a gun at a man again, it’d be too soon.

 

* * *

 

_The golden branch._ The highest civilian honor that could be offered by the NCR.

Six was a decorated war hero, even though he was still just a courier with no name and no road home. NCR officials agreed enthusiastically to help him find his way home, but the celebrations just kept going until everyone forgot what they’d promised him. It didn’t matter, not really. He hadn’t expected their help anyway. Not when it was always they who had come to him for help.

He knew how to find answers now. And finally, as soon as he could get away from the lights of the New Vegas Strip, he could start asking questions regarding his own problems.

“Ready to hit that dusty trail?” Cass asked, her grin soft and her voice softer.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Six said, though they both knew he didn’t mean it. If she didn’t go with him, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to go. The people in his photo might be dead, for all he knew.

“As long as I’ve got ammo and whiskey, the road is my home,” she said. Her eyes sparkled with longing for an adventure, something he never felt himself but somehow craved in her.

Six smiled, realizing that for the first time in months, he was about to do something for himself. “They found a record of me passing through the Mojave Outpost about a month before Goodsprings. Said some rookie had lost the paperwork. I told them I’d been through the Hub. Guess I dropped off something from there for some Ranger or another.”

“Let’s get moving!” Cass hooked her arm in his and pulled him down towards Primm. Six didn’t need to turn back and see New Vegas one last time. It was more than enough that he’d ever seen it at all.

 

* * *

 

Seeing Grace again, alive and real and hugging him with tears running down her face, jogged loose more memories for him. The way Nate looked at him like he wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming made him remember _this boy, this man, is my brother._ The memory of a brother confirmed for him that Grace was his little sister, too. The two short crosses and carefully tended graves behind the house spoke of parents he’d forgotten too. Nate had said something about a girlfriend as well but she was someone’s wife now, and that was just as well.

Six, _no, it’s Rick,_ introduced them both to Cass, and they thanked her for helping him get home. She agreed to tell the story for him – he was sick of hearing it himself – while he walked around their house and tried to remember everything else.

Grace was almost 12 now, they told him. She’d learned to cook and made dinner for everyone, talking about the vegetable garden she’d started after Rick left.

“It was Nate’s idea,” she said. “He says it was to give me something to do, but I think he just wanted someone else to make our food.”

They all laughed, but Six, _Rick_ , was beginning to feel the pressure of his siblings needing him to be the man he didn’t remember.

Grace loaded his plate with stringy little green beans, saying she remembered how much he’d always loved them. Maybe Rick had, he didn’t know, but Six _hated_ green beans, and always had. He ate them anyway, but the smell made him queasy.

Nate had taken his belongings into a bedroom filled with tribal trinkets and little treasures from everywhere he’d been. He just didn’t know which ones were from where anymore.

A dog that obviously loved and remembered him had still failed to surface in his memories.

Cass pulled him outside, telling the siblings that his doctor had ordered him to smoke at least once a day. “Helps the body relax,” she explained. “Good for his noggin.” They only grudgingly left them alone when she shut the door before they could step through.

“Thanks,” Six said, leaning back against the house.

“Any time.”

 

* * *

 

Cass didn’t stay very long. “Dusty trail called again, said I’ve been in one place too long and I’d better get moving.”

Rick wanted her to stay. She’d meant everything to him in the short time he’d known her. It was still, really, a lifetime, in his mind. But he knew she couldn’t stay still very long, and it wasn’t fair to ask her to.

He asked her anyway.

It had been worth a shot. Even meeting her was worth both shots. Maybe, he wondered, luck was on his side – even if luck was then, apparently, sadistic.

“I’ll pass through here again,” she said with a smile. They both knew she didn’t mean it.

“Nothing says I won’t be up and traveling again myself,” he countered, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll see you sometime in the Hub or Shady Sands.”

“Maybe a beach on the coast?” Cass suggested. “I’ve always wanted to lay on a beach and get drunk with good friends.”

Laughing, Rick nodded, unable to vanquish the image of a sunburned Cass cursing and drinking her whiskey just inside a bar with an ocean view. He liked it, grouch and all. “I’ll see you there sometime,” he said, still grinning.

She hugged him for the longest minute of his life, and left without another word.

 

* * *

 

When Nate moved in with his pregnant girlfriend three years later, Rick was surprised. When Grace joined the NCR’s army only three years after that, he was even more so. The house seemed even emptier then than when his parents had died, leaving him in charge of a family he wasn’t ready to run.

But he didn’t resent any of them for it. Not his parents, not Nate or his wife, not even little Gracey who wasn’t so little anymore.

Because after that he found himself sitting in a bar on the coast, eating the fabled fish he’d heard Cass talk about years before. He spent every night sitting out on the sand and every day indoors where the sun wouldn’t get to him. And he waited.

“How’d you know I’d be inside?”

Rick’s eyes fell closed and a grin spread over his face. “Does it matter?” he asked, offering her his drink. Straight whiskey, something he’d grown fond of since he’d last seen her.

Cass took the drink with a smile. “Guess not.”


End file.
